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"Paranormal Activity" has just surpassed "The Blair Witch Project" to become the most profitable movie ever. The box office hit was made for less than $15,000 and as of Wednesday has grossed a whopping $65.1 million, TheWrap.com reported. VIEW THE PHOTOS: Celebs In Halloween Costumes The movie's box office success has reaped a staggering 414,233 percent return on its initial investment. "Paranormal" has gradually expanded from 12 to 33 to 160 to 760 to this weekend's 1,945 theaters - a move that some criticized - but one that Executive VP of Distribution for Paramount, Don Harris, credits as a key to the horror film's success. VIEW THE PHOTOS: Access' Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies Of 2010 "Everybody else thought we should be going faster than we were," he told TheWrap. "But I thought we were doing a pretty good job of seeding the ground as we went. I don't know that we would have done a lot more last weekend if we would ...

TORONTO — Mona Lisa has something new to smile about. A portrait of a young woman thought to be created by a 19th century German artist and sold two years ago for about $19,000 is now being attributed by art experts to Leonardo da Vinci and valued at more than $150 million. The unsigned chalk, ink and pencil drawing, known as "La Bella Principessa," was matched to Leonardo via a technique more suited to a crime lab than an art studio — a fingerprint and palm print found on the 13 1/2-inch-by-10-inch work. Peter Paul Biro, a Montreal-based forensic art expert, said the print of an index or middle finger matched a fingerprint found on Leonardo's "St. Jerome" in the Vatican. Technical, stylistic and material composition evidence — including carbon dating — had art experts believing as early as last year that they had found another work by the creator of the "Mona Lisa." The discovery of the fingerprint has them convinced the work was by Leonardo, whose my...

LOS ANGELES - "Swingers" co-stars Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau buddied up for the weekend's top movie as "Couples Retreat" debuted with $35.3 million, while the micro-budgeted fright flick "Paranormal Activity" leaped into the top 10. Shot for a reported $15,000, "Paranormal Activity" came in at No. 5 with $7.1 million as distributor Paramount expanded it into daylong release after two weeks of midnight-only screenings. "Paranormal Activity" played in narrow release of just 160 cinemas, a fraction of the theater count for other top movies. It averaged a whopping $44,163 a theater, compared with $11,780 in 3,000 theaters for "Couples Retreat." "You almost do a double take when you look at that theater count for a movie in the top five," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "That's amazing. That's unprecedented." "Couples Retreat" exceeded expectations for distr...

LOS ANGELES — They have suffered pay cuts, layoffs and Hollywood’s urge to write them off every time a poorly reviewed movie makes good at the box office. But America’s film critics, an ornery lot, are not dead yet. In fact, their craft has shown flickering signs of new life lately — though not the kind that leaves ink-stained cinephiles entirely comfortable. The last few weeks have brought the debut of Moviereviewintelligence.com , a new Web site committed to monitoring, scoring and proliferating the work of critics at some 65 print and broadcast outlets. Started by David A. Gross, a former marketing executive with 20th Century Fox, the new site is replete with charts and graphs that track the good, the bad and the ugly of reviews. Those numbers assess matters as granular as the average time at which reviews appear after the movie’s release (1.4 hours after release for “Land of the Lost” ) and the productivity of individual critics (Leah Rozen at People is good for 2.6 reviews a week,...

Tell Me More, April 23, 2009 · South Africa is challenging traditional wine producers Italy and France for a slice of the world market. Wine maven Callie Crossley, author of the blog The Crushed Grape Report , tells why South Africa is gaining popularity among wine connoisseurs. Grapes: Chenin Blanc (White) Chenin Blanc is an important white grape variety planted in the Anjou-Saumur and Touraine regions of the Loire Valley and the most widely planted varietal grape in South Africa. In the Loire it produces high quality dry wines in Savenniéres, and luscious sweet, dessert wines in Coteaux du Layon, Bonnezeaux and Quarts de Chaume. In Vouvray and Montlouis it can be dry, medium dry, or sweet, and still or sparkling. Whether dry or sweet, the best Loire Chenin Blancs possess marvellously concentrated rich, honeyed fruit toge ther with refreshingly vibrant acidity. It is Chenin Blanc`s high acidity that enable the wines to age so well. In South Africa Chenin Blanc is easier to grow and is...

My daughter Abena delighted me in December with multiple Christmas gifts from Madagascar, including this t-shirt emblazoned with "Ravitoto manioc conception," which apparently is a favorite Malagasy dish--a meat stew (especially pork) made with manioc (cassava) greens. Sorry, I've already eaten my fabulous dark chocolate (Robert Chocolat Noir Spécial) bar so I can't show that. It looks like it was made from chocolate from Madagascar in Antananarivo for "Chocolaterie Robert S. A." (South Africa?) She also collected 5 new cookbooks for the Africa Cookbook Project on her travels. Two of them are totally in Malagasy (Inona no masaka? vols. 1 and 2), one is both in French and "Malgache" (Cuisine Malgache/Cuisine Creole), another is in French (La Cuisine de Madagascar), and the final one, a book on tropical fruits published in France (okay, so maybe it doesn't technically qualify for the Africa Cookbook Project), is also in French (Les Fruits Tropica...